


Only If For A Night

by sibley (ferns)



Series: Heartlines [3]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Autistic Cisco Ramon, Developing Relationships, Disability, Human Experimentation, Implied/Referenced Torture, Manipulation, Multi, Nonverbal Communication, Polyamory, Project Cadmus, avery has adhd, the speedforce sucks :/
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 22:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12662832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: Barry gets kidnapped, the dynamic between Cindy and the rest starts to shift, and the speedforce is uncaring.





	Only If For A Night

“I don’t want to die,” Barry whispers. The words freeze on his lips as he trembles. It’s so, so cold. Cold like the timeline and the speedforce prison and cold like Snart’s gun biting into his flesh. “I don’t want to die. Please, please don’t let me die.”

“You’re not going to die,” the doctor standing above him says soothingly, stroking his hair the way Cisco would. The way Iris would. The way Joe would. Like they’re his friend and not a torturer. “You’re going to be just fine, alright? Why don’t you go back to sleep.”

Barry squirms a little, restraints biting into his skin. He feels so naked and exposed even though they thankfully left him with his pants. “I want to go home. Let me go _home,_ please, I want to-I _need_ to-”

“Shh, shh, Mr. Allen. You can go home soon. Back to the speedforce. Wouldn’t you like that?” The doctor pats his cheek, smiling gently down at him. She turns to the man next to her with a frown. “Up the next shock you give him, please.”

Barry’s unconscious before he can feel the electricity.

Before he can tell them that he knows the speedforce hates him. That it does not want him back. It is cold and unfeeling and it does not care about him. Only if it can use him for a vessel.

It is not his home.

* * *

Cisco paces, pulling hard on his hair as he chews on his lower lip. No vibes, no news, no _nothing._ The speedster that knocked Barry out and ran off with him hasn’t shown up again. Not even to gloat or to tell them that they killed Barry. And they don’t have any way to figure out who that speedster even _was,_ since none of them have ever seen them before. Purple and white lightning, a blue and black suit, a little flicker of pink in what might be their hair. That’s all they have to go on.

“Breathe,” Iris advises, reaching out to pull Cisco’s hand out of his hair. The look he gives her makes her stop-she knows she shouldn’t stop him from stimming, but watching him hurt himself even if it’s only a little bit to calm himself down without trying to stop him is still a hard thing to do. “We’re going to get him back. He’s going to be okay.”

She’s trying to be the level-headed one, the rational one.

She’s failing.

Fear for Barry is visible in everything she’s doing. The way she’s standing, one hand gripping onto the desk while the other one rests on her stomach like she can protect the tiny lives that once grew inside of it even if Dawn and Don are safely stowed away on Earth-3. Neither of them are going to think about what would happen if something went wrong with them and the mystery speedster  

Cisco’s phone buzzes. _Dante._ He probably wants to know if they’ve made any progress. Cisco’s throat feels like it’s closing up. Dante hardly even knows Barry, but he knows how much Cisco loves him and that’s enough for him to be concerned. God, Cisco loves his big brother.

Cindy breaches in, brushing wet hair out of her face. It’s raining outside and she’s been helping Wally search the place where Barry was taken. Cisco opens his mouth, hopeful, and she shakes her head.

“Whoever took him wasn’t great at covering their tracks, but they didn’t have to be.” Cindy scowls. “He wasn’t the Flash when he got taken, so at least the police can be involved, but the rain and the crowd that Barry was in and the fact that it was a speedster make it… Difficult.” She hesitates. “I can’t get any flickers from him. It’s… I’m sorry.”

Cisco rocks on his heels, flapping his hands fast. “We _need_ to find him, we have to, I-” His voice cracks. “I’m _not_ losing him, _we’re_ not losing him, we _can’t,_ he’s _our Barry-”_

Cindy crosses the room in two long strides and pulls him into her arms, vibrating a little and forcing him to match the calming frequency she’s set herself to. “Breathe. Breathe. We’re going to find him.”

She sounds almost angry, like she’s demanding that he believe her. Cisco knows full well that that’s just how she gets when she’s concerned, so he lets it slide. He squeezes onto her and then pulls away to grab Iris’s hand. “I have to keep trying. I need to-give me the glove again.”

* * *

“You’re never getting out of here. You know that, don’t you?”

Barry looks up, the strap around his neck that he’s been struggling to free himself of cutting into his skin harshly and making him choke a little. The pod-thing that they put him in is transparent, which means he can see the woman-the _girl,_ she can’t be older than sixteen-standing outside of it.

She’s the same one that kidnapped him.

But now that he’s not struggling in her arms and trying to get away, Barry can see that the suit she’s wearing is too big for her, the pinkish-purple dye in her hair is starting to grow out, her dark brown eyes are dull, and she looks like she hasn’t been eating well. If he had to guess, he’d say that whoever these people are, they’re hurting her too.

“I have to try,” he rasps. There’s an anxiety attack tugging at the edge of his brain, and Barry’s sure there’s going to be a slip close behind. “I need to get _out_ of here.” He coughs, but it just makes his head smack painfully against the slab inside of the capsule that he’s strapped to. “Who _are_ you? Where are we?”

“Cadmus.” The girl looks around, eyes momentarily flickering gold and violet. “I’m… I’m Avery. Avery Ho.”

“Barry Allen.”

“I know.” She hesitates and looks up at what might be a security camera in one of the upper corners of the room. “Do you know why they brought you here? I can tell you. It’d have to be fast, though.”

“No, I- _please,_ tell me, I need to know.” Barry tries not to shake. He’s still so, so cold. He’s sure his captors must know that cold slows him down. They must, if it’s this freezing.

Avery hums something that Barry can’t hear through the glass, vibrating in place for a second. “They wanna make you like me. Or make me like you. Or both. They want to control you like they control me but make me see the timeline like you do. I think. I don’t know.”

“...You’re just a kid,” Barry whispers. “Why do they want that?”

Avery shrugs a little like she’s purposefully trying to keep herself subdued. She fails to suppress the fast tapping of her foot. Barry tries to picture her as she might’ve been if neither of them were here, a jumping bouncing ball of energy. Wonders how long ‘Cadmus’ has had her. “I don’t know.”

Her body suddenly jerks in place as her hands fly to the thin collar around her neck, and before Barry can blink, she’s gone.

* * *

They won’t tell him what they want. Avery is his only source of information, and she hasn’t returned.

They don’t cut into him when they put him on the table. They just… Hover over him. Try to trigger him into having episodes.

Which they manage to do. Often.

Barry throws up after the fifth consecutive one, crying and reaching out for Cisco and Iris even though he knows they aren’t there. They’re not there but he _needs_ them to be there, his lungs are burning with lightning and he needs the people he loves to soothe it out of him. Or maybe that’s just his throat burning with vomit. He can’t tell.

He doesn’t know how long it has been. Maybe a year. Maybe a few days. Maybe only an hour.

Eventually, they don’t even need to trigger the slipping.

Barry retreats into the timeline and doesn’t come out.

* * *

 Cindy breaks down the doors to the Cadmus lab that Cisco finally managed to vibe, eyes _burning_ red. “Where is he?”

Dante, eager to get started, doesn’t wait for the small cluster of scientists to answer at all before hurling himself at them. Cisco watches him tear into them, impassive. Dante won’t kill them unless Cisco gives the word to, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still immensely satisfying to watch the people he saw torture his boyfriend get knocked around like they’re leaves in Dante’s hurricane.

“Dante, stop,” he calls when everyone is unconscious except for them but Dante still looks like he’s itching to attack. After what happened to him, he doesn't have any merciful feelings towards people who hurt those who can't fight back. Who haven't done anything  _wrong._ And that combined with how much he knows Cisco cares about Barry... Cisco needs to reign him in before things get too dangerous. “Barry’s not in here.”

Dante frowns and spins on his heel, looking around to confirm that Cisco’s right before huffing and crossing his arms. He points to the door and tilts his head.

Cisco nods. “Yeah, he’s definitely in this building. I _know_ I saw him here. C’mon.”

A long, drawn-out scream echoes from down the hall.

Cisco runs toward it and prays they’re not too late.

* * *

Iris jumps to her feet when the breach opens and Dante, Cynthia, and Cisco step out, Cisco clinging to a bleeding Barry.

He’s shaking and his eyes are a million miles away and before Iris can even register that he’s babbling about stars and rivers she knows he’s having an episode.

(Before the breach can close, something the color of saffron and lavender shoots out and vanishes from STAR Labs, and when Barry wakes up he gets the news that the speedster who captured him is still at large. _)_

Barry doesn’t come out of the slip.

Caitlin says it’s probably a defense mechanism. He was trying to escape the fear and the pain of Cadmus (and god, they still don’t know why they even targeted him in the first place) and when an episode happened he didn’t come out of it in order to protect himself.

Iris curls up with Barry at their house when Caitlin clears him and promises he’s okay, she loves him so much and he’s okay.

“Sun,” he whispers, laughing into her neck while tears stream down his cheeks. _“Sun.”_

“Sun?” She wipes at his cheeks. “Not the stars this time, Barry?”

“Stars is what he calls you when you’re both together,” Cindy corrects, and Iris turns her head. Cindy’s standing there, wearing a pair of Cisco’s pants and a sports bra. She smiles at Iris and Iris tries to ignore the happy blooming of warmth in her stomach. “Cisco will be out in a second.”

Iris shakes her head a little bit. “What did you say about the stars?”

“Stars. That’s what he calls you and Cisco. When you’re together. I don’t know if he’s doing it on purpose or not, but…” Cindy shrugs a little. “He does.”

Cisco steps out of the bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. He and Cindy like to shower together. Not even in the sex kind of way, not usually. Even if it’s awkward to shower at the same time, they like having the proximity to each other, the feeling of safe closeness.

“Stars!” Barry cries out, eyes shining with delight. “Manny, look at all those stars-aren’t you glad I dragged you up here? The stars are so _pretty,_ Cisco, look, they’re raining-pouring-cloying-” He whimpers. “Too loud.”

“Okay, Barry. Too loud.” Iris helps him lay down next to her. She has faith that he’ll come out of this just like he comes out of all of the other episodes, but… “Go to sleep.”

Barry grasps onto Cisco’s sleeve and pulls him down with them. “Hal has to come.”

Cisco cuddles up against him. “Alright, Bar. I’m here. We’re your stars.”

“Stars, sun, moon,” Barry agrees. He looks at Cisco and frowns, reaching a little blindly in Cindy's direction. “Want Artemis. Eclipse.”

“Is he talking about me?” Cindy blinks slowly. “He… _Me?”_

“I think so.” Cisco smiles and tugs her down so she’s practically on top of him. “C’mon, baby. You heard the man.”

Cindy swallows. The three of them fit together perfectly, _sun moon stars,_ and she’s-well. She’s an outlier. Some days she’s not sure if she was ever meant for this. To love these people like she does in the different ways that she does.

But if Cisco wants her to stay with them, then she’ll stay.

* * *

Barry comes out of the episode slowly. Only for a few seconds at a time before slipping back. Then minutes, then hours, then days.

It never lasts. And when he slips back in, he slips hard-hard enough that he can’t come back out for at least another three days every time.

It takes a month for them to let their guard down and realize that Barry’s back permanently. At least until he has another episode, which lasts the normal amount of time. They all try to hide their relief at that.

Barry doesn’t comment on the shift that he can feel happened in the relationship that the three of them have to Cindy. Later, maybe, he’ll bring it up. But for now… They have other things to focus on.

When he’s ready to, he tells them through tears that Cadmus wanted puppets. Or at least that’s what Avery thought they wanted. That Avery was another prisoner, the speedster who kidnapped him, who knew his secret identity, who was just a _child,_ who he needs to find and help if she wants him to. That the Cadmus scientists never confirmed if that’s what they really wanted. That they treated him like a person but that almost made it worse because they didn’t _care._

Iris and Cisco exchange looks above his head while they soothe him.

They don’t know what Cadmus wanted either.

Or if they’ll come back.

**Author's Note:**

> Avery might show up again, but she's got a long way to go until she can become the Flash of China. (I know it's not properly explained why she's with Cadmus-they threatened her parents and 'killed' Meena Dhawan, another speedster she knew, in order to coerce her into working for them.)


End file.
